HUMAN2HUMAN

Just because you think, it is so, or just, does not make it so. You may be wrong. I know it is hard to believe right. What else could you be wrong about, who knows. Since you believe it, it must be so. That is called conformational bias. We all suffer from it. We all want to be right, but because the ego must always be right so must we. If we think we know everything how will we ever learn? We are entitled to our own opinion, as the saying goes, but not to our facts. The facts are the facts. We must keep an open mind and not run everything through the filter of our experience alone. We must try not to interpret everything and assign it a fixed meaning. We must approach everything from all sides, put ourselves in the place or space, and do our best to apply reason and logic whilst we trust our intuition. If we are able not to blame, shame, admonish or praise we are better able to see things as they truly are. Our life is shaped by our mind, for we become wh...

A TREATISE ON THE ART AND SCIENCE OF PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION. Bipolar I Depressive. In my early thirties that was my current situation. Finally, a name for my pain. “It’s like diabetes.” They said. “You can treat it with medication and talk therapy.” They said. “It is manageable.” They said. “You will have it for Life.” They said. They also said that I had a 1 in 5 chance of ending my own life. That is a 20% likelihood that on any given day, I will pull my own plug. That shed a lot of light, on an infinite amount of darkness. I am here, to tell you that if you are mentally ill, struggle with depression, anxiety, or addiction – if you do not – Adapt, Evolve, you will die before your time and before you know what hit you. Furthermore, if you deem yourself a stable genius the same applies. Depression will pull you down. Anxiety pushes you down. Addiction will burn you alive. Bipolar I Depressive will pull you apart, burn you alive, push you down, pull you down drown you,...

JUST BE - THAT'S ALL THERE IS PERIOD! That's all there is to it. Easy but not simple! But how, you ask? How do I just be? Can you be present? Can you quiet your mind? Can you breathe in and then out? Can you be aware of your thoughts? Can you be mindful of your feelings? Can you stop before you act impulsively? You can. I know you can. If I can then you can too. A year and a half ago, I had a Bipolar episode. My anxiety was off the charts -I then went into a depression and it spiraled down and I hit bottom, AGAIN .  I climbed out of the hole eventually. I was fortunate that I have people who care about me. I was trying to be something I was not and when I did not succeed, I got down on myself and it all went to shit. I came off my medication. I could not eat. I could not sleep. I lost thirty pounds. That attack sent my blood sugar soaring. Now, I have that challenge to combat. No worries though. It was the best thing that could happened to me. I got up. I sto...

I was broken. I was damaged. It did not happen all at once. It started with a crack. To this day, I do not know the origin of the fracture, the fault line that slowly tore me apart and left me in pieces.  I spent a lifetime trying to figure out when, how, who, what, and where.  No more, no more. It does not matter. I assembled and united all the disparate parts and pieces and that missing piece that I could not find, space where that piece I thought would make me hole, that space – that is where the light gets in. I am OK with that.  The light that got in illuminated me from within and throughout and purged and cleansed and purified and lifted me up and onto a higher plane of awareness and experience.  What makes music beautiful is not so much the notes as the spaces, rests, pauses – so that we may breathe and value and enjoy the stillness and the emptiness so  that the sound, the light may enter occupy and envelope the fullness of the mag...

"Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend." – Theophrastus. Time wasted causes depression. Time anticipated wasted causes anxiety. Boredom makes us uneasy and tense. Living in the moment - Priceless. So much is said and thought of time. To me, it is not a currency   but a source of measurement, and this too is probably not helpful or effective.  Being in the moment is absolutely helpful and productive. But, there are so many factors that pull on our attention and energy. For instance - you have a long weekend off from work - and the moment you leave the office - you start to count down the hours to you have to return - instead of enjoying the time away. What is up with that? We are all tethered to what maybe instead of being enraptured to what is. We always need an adversary and to be at odds when we could accept there here and now and bask in the glorious time that we have. We never know how much of it we have so - why not enjoy what we have and...

Life is hard enough without any further difficulties. Those who struggle with a brain disorder, depression and anxiety have an even harder time because besides dealing with the rough terrain of the every day, we - all of us have an added degree of difficulty. We have an unhinged person in the oval office. Whatever your political leanings, he is making an unstable world that much more tedious to navigate. Personally, I have a hard time finding a way of tuning this craziness out. I am a Humanist and an Optimist, but I do not understand how someone people actually are ok with this and support this person. I care about children at the border, the environment, the LGBTQ community, equal pay for women, Pro-Choice, the poor, the unemployed, increasing the minimum wage, etc.. call me a bleeding-heart liberal if you must. I care what happens to this world.  In the meantime, I struggle to keep a job to pay my bills and take care of those who rely on me while I am trying to create a ...

The other day I was listening to a podcast and they were discussing mental health. The question at hand was - if mental health, or a brain disorder, is caused strictly due to a chemical imbalance? The eventually landed on the idea that it is a combination of chemical imbalance and a person's emotional state. Of course, one's emotional state has a lot of different contributing factors. If a person's emotional state is not steady or stable it tends to fluctuate. Depending on the individual or one's state may cycle rapidly i.e. a person who is Bipolar may go up and down like a roller coaster. A person who is not Neuro-divergent and who is relatively healthy - mentally wise may only have a blip or a mild disappearance throughout their day. Come what may - it is similar to the chicken and the egg paradox. If someone has troubling thoughts, that may cause them to get emotionally upset. Which inturns stirs the cauldron of neurochemistry causing one to enter a state that...

Sometimes through no fault of their own, some people become Mystics. From a life-altering event, a disease, a struggle beyond imagining, a death, an insight, or a dream. Whatever the case - a change happens. The determining factor is suffering. To experience and live in a state of bliss, first, you have to spend some time in hell. It either destroys you or tempers you into a strong yet flexible weapon of truth and righteousness. Those of us that are wired a little different from the rest are challenged with the rough terrain of every day due to a chemical imbalance not taking our meds, not eating or sleeping right, let alone self-medicating - life can be a real challenge. If not life-threatening. My name is Jeff Turnbull. I am a Survivor. I have battled demons and monsters all my life. It was not until later in life that I could name them - Anxiety, Depression, Bipolar Disorder- I. I did a lot of work on myself. I am here to share with you what I have learned. I do my best to...